1. business and industrial
2. manufacturing

R E S E A R C H A N D I N N O VAT I O N AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F T O R O N T O • S P R I N G 2 0 1 5 • V O L . 1 7 , N O . 1
The
Manufacturing
Issue
THE FUTURE OF
MANUFACTURING
What we make and how we make it —
and how that’s changing
THE TORONTO INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
Hani Naguib demonstrates
the electronic skin
developed in his lab.
The Bionic Man: coming soon?
The Toronto Institute of
Advanced Manufacturing
What?
Founded in 2014, this multi-disciplinary
institute housed at U of T’s Faculty
of Applied Science and Engineering
focuses on:
•M
anufacturing of advanced materials:
making new and better materials.
•A
dvanced processes and systems:
improving manufacturing processes.
• Knowledge-based manufacturing:
handling data better and applying
mathematical tools to manufacturing.
How?
By collaborating with industry to solve
real problems. Researchers have collaborated with Magna International,
Celestica, Blackberry, Pratt and Whitney,
Bombardier and GE Digital Energy.TIAM
also supports research and development
for small and medium sized enterprises
and start-up companies.
Why?
To create long-term benefits to society.
Advanced manufacturing creates jobs
at the same time it produces value
added, greener products that improve
health and quality of life.
Hani Naguib’s smart materials group is building artificial muscles, electronic skins
and an array of other cool products by Jenny Hall
In 1999, NASA issued a challenge to the scientific community: develop a robotic arm with artificial muscles
that could beat a human in an arm-wrestling match.
At a conference six years later, a high school girl
faced off against three such arms. She won against each
of them, but the scientific gauntlet was thrown down
— and an idea was planted in Hani Naguib’s mind.
A professor of mechanical and materials engineering, Naguib’s attempt to make an artificial muscle is
part of his interest in smart and adaptive materials.
“A smart material senses and responds to the
environment,” he explains. “For example, if it senses
heat, it could respond by cooling the environment.
Or by sensing something in its environment, it
might change its own shape.”
Take the muscle. While previous generations of
artificial muscles were made with motors, Naguib’s
uses very fine, lightweight fibres that contain “memory
material.” He can train his material to “remember” certain
shapes. When he activates a small electrical charge, the
material moves into a shape it has been programmed to
remember — a hand making a fist, for example.
All of Naguib’s work is based on a deceptively
simple principle — exploiting the existing properties
of materials.
“Imagine if I put rubber in the freezer,” he says by
way of analogy. “It would become really stiff. I could
take rubber and make into any shape I want. If I put it
in the freezer, it will retain that shape.”
Of course, Naguib’s lab isn’t full of rubber balls
and freezers. He and his team work with nano- and
micro-structures, eventually scaling up to build
prototypes when they have a hit.
Some of the lab’s recent projects include:
• Smart wearables that have sensing and
battery-like capabilities.
• Electronic skin that is self-healing (ultimately for
going over those artificial muscles).
• Stents and surgical tools that are inserted in a
patient as a thin wire and then open once
they’re in place, making the surgical implantation
less traumatic.
• Sponge-like materials for drug delivery that
“squeeze” and release liquid drugs when they’ve
reached the right spot in the body.
Where do these varied applications come
from? Naguib says that while in the past labs like
his would build something and then think about
how it might be applied, today he has reversed
the process. He actively seeks out problems to
solve, talking to people at hospitals and in industry
about how his lab could help them.
This problem-based method is also at the heart
of the Toronto Institute for Advanced Manufacturing,
which Naguib directs (see sidebar).
“The idea is to bring research all the way to final
products that have impact,” he says. “We’re looking to
make long term benefits to society.”
For more about research at U of T, please visit:
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EDGE / SPRING 2015
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PHOTO: ROB WAYMEN
THE MANUFACTURING ISSUE
This “enabling technology” is invisible —
but it’s all around you
Javad Mostaghimi helms U of T’s Centre for Advanced Coating Technologies by Jenny Hall
Have you ever been on a plane and marvelled over
the fact that a 400-ton hunk of metal can get off the
ground? As you peered out the window at the wing
flaps, you probably thought about how the miracle of
flight has something to do with the laws of physics. Or
maybe, temporarily deafened by the roar of the jet, you
credit the internal combustion engine.
All that may be true, but you also have something
else to thank for getting you safely and speedily to your
destination: coating.
The landing gear, the engine, even the windshield
wipers — everything is coated with substances to allow
the plane and its parts to withstand heat, fight corrosion and repel water.
It’s true in daily life, too. Your enamelled bathtub, your
non-stick pan, your eyeglasses, even the paint on your
walls — coatings are all around you. And their manufacture is a multi-billion dollar industry that is constantly
innovating to create products that improve performance
while protecting health and the environment.
For 20-plus years, Javad Mostaghimi and his colleagues at U of T’s Centre for Advanced Coating
Technologies have been conducting basic research into
how coatings work and testing and developing new
coatings as well as technologies for applying them.
Take those airplane engines. “According to thermodynamics,” Mostaghimi says, “if you run an engine at
higher temperatures, you get better efficiency. We can run
engines at higher temperatures if the materials they’re
made of can withstand those temperatures. The challenge
is that the materials that can withstand those temperatures are not good for manufacturing. Ceramic, for
example, can withstand high temperatures, but it is brittle.
You can’t use it to build things. But you can put a thin layer
of it on other things that are good for manufacturing.”
Coating, says Mostaghimi, used to be more of an art.
His group is bringing scientific rigour to the field.
“The basic, fundamental building block of coating is the
impact of droplets on surfaces,” he says, so his team models
and photographs what happens when droplets hit surfaces.
But, he says, “this is a technology that should
be applied.”
And apply it they do, working with industrial
partners to solve problems and improve processes.
Based out of a lab packed full of various machines
and tools to test different sprays and surfaces, they
have undertaken all kinds of challenges, including:
• Developing coatings for reactors that process
waste from nuclear power generation and make
it into hydrogen.
• Improving the infrastructure that burns
municipal waste to make the process more
environmentally-friendly.
• Developing coatings for valves in factories to make
them much less vulnerable to corrosion.
Coating, says Mostaghimi, may be invisible in
most cases, but that’s just because it’s “an enabling
technology.”
In other words, you don’t notice it because it’s
doing its job.
Still, there is a renewed sense of excitement about
manufacturing. It comes with a variety of names, the
most common being “advanced manufacturing.” It
is a difficult phenomenon to put your finger on, but
governments around the world — including Canada’s
— are spearheading programs to enable a very different — and promising — kind of manufacturing.
It involves a huge variety of areas of expertise. Joining the traditional processes and materials at the top of
the agenda are newer topics such as entrepreneurship,
big data and collaboration. On the people side, social
scientists, labour specialists and economic innovators
are as essential as engineers and materials experts. No
longer is manufacturing ruled only by industrial chieftains with gigantic factories — today, governments,
the private sector and post-secondary education institutions are working hand-in-glove to develop new
products and better processes that will solve problems
and create prosperity.
This issue of Edge profiles the new waves in manufacturing on a range of fronts: the realities of global
economics, policy, entrepreneurship, materials, and
novel processes. We present examples of how U of T is
creating innovations that will do a lot of people a lot
of good.
PHOTO: ROB WAYMEN
Javad Mostaghimi holding a piece of foam
shaped like a turbine blade. The foam has
been coated with zirconia — a thermal
barrier. Air can flow through the foam and
cool the blade so that it can withstand
temperatures greater than 1000C.
Big data, entrepreneurs, collaboration:
Welcome to the new
manufacturing
PROFESSOR VIVEK GOEL
Are the glory days of
manufacturing over?
There was a time, of
course, when manufacturing ruled economies
around the world. After all, our reliance on manufacturing
is where the term “industrialized nation” was derived. The
manufacturing sectors related to automobiles, shipbuilding, pulp and paper, textiles, steel, oil, chemicals, and food
all contributed to the building of national economies.
But the steel industry and the pulp and paper mills
and the auto sector of this country are not the bustling
enterprises they once were.
I hope you enjoy this issue.
Professor Vivek Goel
Vice President, Research & Innovation
EDGE / SPRING 2015
3
THE MANUFACTURING ISSUE
3D PRINTING
The room that 3D printing built
New technology opens up a world of possibility for architecture by Sarah McDonald
we build houses now is not as digital as with other industries. There’s still potential
for improvement,” he says. “It’s an exciting time because 3D printing has opened
up a whole new world, especially in combination with the computational design
tools available.”
3D printing also opens up the choices architects have when it comes to the
materials to which their designs are applied. “It can be ornamental and functional at
the same time. For example, you can adapt the wall thickness or create perforations.
You could even include a certain climatic performance.”
He adds that there is now a printer that can print materials and
combine them. “Instead of having a colour palette of a 2D printer, you
have a palette of behaviour or of attributes so you can combine soft
and hard, transparent and not transparent. Basically, you create your
own material or you can program your material. Before we always
tried to maybe standardize natural materials and now it’s the other
way around.”
3D printing also enables architects to be more directly connected
to the finished products that come from their designs.
“As an architect, before 3D printing, I would usually create construction drawings and send them off to a construction site where
someone would read them and try to build based on this representation. Now I create a 3D model and send it to the printer, so there is a much more direct connection
between me as an architect and the artefact itself,” Dillenburger elaborates.
Dillenburger envisions construction sites evolving to a point where components
of houses will be 3D printed on site and then assembled like giant Lego blocks, similar to the way his 3D room was constructed.
“There are several researchers looking into the applications of 3D printing in
architecture. Maybe the 3D printer is onsite and can print the building, then climb
the building until it’s finished. Or maybe we just 3D print prefabricated elements and
then deliver them or have a print room next to the construction site.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF BENJAMIN DILLENBURGER/MICHAEL HANSMEYER
In 2013 Benjamin Dillenburger and Michael Hansmeyer designed and created the
first entirely 3D printed room.
And what a room it was.
Reminiscent of ornately carved Baroque designs, the structure, named “Digital
Grotesque,” is made up of thousands of curves and shapes that intertwine to create
the complex 10-foot tall sandstone room. It is currently housed at the FRAC art centre
in Orleans, France
In the past, the construction of such an intricately detailed room would have
been prohibitively expensive and taken ages to complete. This
has changed with the advent of 3D printing and its associated
computational design tools. “It’s a weird situation,” says Dillenburger,
assistant professor in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture,
Landscape and Design. “We are designing forms that you could
never draw manually. You could not even visualize them. But now we
can fabricate them.”
Designers will no longer have to sacrifice beauty or artistic detail
to keep cost and labour low, says Dillenburger. “For the first time
we can manufacture three-dimensional parts without too many
geometric constraints. So every part can be different, which is a big
difference from other construction technologies.
Previously, the details in a sandstone room would have been created by milling,
which involves material loss, whereas when sandstone is 3D printed, it uses layers of
sand and binder to create the desired structure. The remaining loose sand is brushed
away to be used in another printed structure or component. “It’s subtractive. A mill
head is like a drill, so it can’t reach all these elements. You would have to split it into
multiple pieces. That’s so much work and sometimes really not possible, but 3D printing turns this logic completely around.”
Now Dillenburger is looking to explore large scale possibilities and take his
designs from 3D printing an individual room to 3D printing an entire house. “The way
4
EDGE / SPRING 2015
Sustainable aviation: How 3D
printing makes airplanes more
environmentally friendly
Glenn Hibbard and Craig Steeves are creating lighter, stronger planes by Sarah McDonald
PHOTO: JOHN HRYNIUK
When most people board a plane, they probably aren’t thinking about the complex
invisible structures inside the materials that make up the body or wings of the aircraft.
Fortunately for the rest of us, Craig Steeves and Glenn Hibbard are.
Steeves is an assistant professor in the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace
Studies (UTIAS) and Hibbard is an associate professor for the Department of Materials
Science and Engineering. Together they are using 3D printing capabilities to develop new
materials for use in aviation that are lighter, stiffer and stronger than anything seen before.
Steeves, who also heads up the Advanced Aerospace Structures Group at UTIAS, says his
research into sustainable aviation lined up nicely with Hibbard’s work combining microstructural and architectural design to develop new materials.
“We think a lot about sustainable aviation: the environmental impact of aircraft. If we
can do something that reduces their weight, that has a direct effect on how much fuel they
require,” Steeves explains.
That’s where Hibbard’s research and 3D printing come into play.
To manufacture these strong, lightweight components is a two-step process. Step one
is 3D printing a polymeric template which is then metalized. Step two is to deposit a metal
sleeve with an internal nanostructure that makes it very strong. “So it’s really two fundamentally different processes that are combined together to give us a new kind of material,”
Hibbard explains.
It’s a material Steeves says would have been close to if not entirely impossible to create
before the advent of the 3D printer.
“Typically to make something, you have to start out with a piece of material bigger
than what you want and then cut pieces out like a sculpture, like Michelangelo sculpting,
whereas 3D printing is more like what a potter does. A potter starts with the right amount of
material and just shapes it until it’s the right form. Now with 3D printing you can do things
that are much more complicated than a pot, of course, which is the wonderful advantage.
We can make essentially any shape we want, and then with the electro deposition process,
we can put really high performance metal onto virtually any shape.”
Steeves says the capacity 3D printing has to combine complex geometry and high performance material could open a world of possibility for sustainable aviation and beyond.
“High performance material gets us high strength for relatively low mass, which is perfect
for building more sustainable, environmentally-friendly aircraft.”
Craig Steeves (left) and Glenn Hibbard.
EDGE / SPRING 2015
5
MANUFACTURING POLICY
A water tower being
demolished at a Detroit
Chrysler plant. Detroit, for
years overreliant on the
auto industry, has seen its
industrial base decline. In manufacturing, policy matters
Harald Bathelt says it’s all about innovation and global linkages by Jenny Hall
We’ve all seen the pictures of the ruin that is modernday Detroit, large swaths of the once-mighty Motor City
abandoned, left to return to nature.
What went wrong? And more importantly, what can
be done — if not for Detroit then for other, less dramatic
examples of industrial decline?
As an economic geographer, Harald Bathelt
has made a career of looking at how
industries are organized — how they
create jobs and what policy can do to
support the process.
“I want to understand why in some
places, people have jobs, and in other
places, they don’t,” he says.
Economic geography has a long
tradition of looking at industrial clusters, which
Bathelt, who is appointed to U of T’s Departments
of Political Science and Geography, defines as an
industry plus its services.
“Firms benefit if there are firms nearby that
produce similar things,” he explains. “They may be
competing, but they can watch and learn from each
other. They can also directly collaborate with suppliers that are close by, and knowledge can circulate
very quickly. A good labour market can develop. All
of this can be very beneficial.”
It can also lead to what he calls “lock in,” where
“an old industry has forgotten to modernize.” In other
words, Detroit.
A lot of Bathelt’s work is about discovering the
optimal balance between clusters that create jobs and
those that lead to stagnation — think Silicon Valley
versus Detroit. He also considers how old industrial
areas can be transformed and how industries like
manufacturing can make sure they’re
innovating and taking advantage of
knowledge from elsewhere.
One project looked at how traditional
manufacturing firms in the KitchenerWaterloo, Ont. area dealt with the 2008
financial crisis.
“We found some firms with very old
structures, especially in the automobile industry,
often branch plants from the US, with extreme
dependence on just one or two customers. They
had no innovation built in. In my former studies
of automobile suppliers in Europe and China, I
never came across anything like this. It seemed
to me like something in the 1970s.” These firms
didn’t weather the crisis well — some drastically
cut their workforces and many closed altogether.
On the other hand, he found some firms that stuck
with their core labour force, kept innovating and prepared to invest more after the crisis.
ROBOTICS + MECHATRONICS
Making babies: could
a robotics innovation
improve IVF?
“The potential benefits to patients will be enormous,” says
Yu Sun by Laurie Stephens
Fifteen years ago, the da Vinci system of robotic surgery rocked the medical world
with its ability to assist surgeons with difficult surgeries on organs and tissue.
Today, the University of Toronto’s Yu Sun is taking robotic surgery to a whole other
level — to the cells themselves.
New techniques for micro-robotic cellular surgery — procedures that are performed
at the microscopic level — are being developed in Sun’s Advanced Micro and Nanosystems Laboratory (AMNL) that was established by the professor when he joined U of T’s
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in 2004.
“In the medical robotics area, the biggest success story so far is the da Vinci
robotic system,” says Sun, who is a McLean Senior Faculty Fellow at U of T and
6
EDGE / SPRING 2015
“Some of them had been very dependent on certain markets, but they were making efforts to diversify,
to develop new products that would enable them to
not just be the dependent supplier but develop on their
own. Those firms did quite well.”
The question is how to encourage this kind of innovation? Governments can play a role by developing policies,
but they have to get it right to make a difference.
Bathelt thinks part of the problem with many existing policies is that they’re too broad. Many of them
apply across the country, when they might be better
served by focusing on developing healthy clusters.
Perhaps more critically, Bathelt believes Canadian
industries need to be encouraged to create links to
global markets. Canada has been intensely focused
on the U.S. as a trading partner, but, he says, we’ve
grown too dependent on our southern neighbours.
Silicon Valley, by contrast, has been very successful in
leveraging ties to places like Taiwan and Bangalore —
the region is full of students and start-up companies
from those places. Knowledge flows back and forth,
facilitating creativity and spurring innovation.
Canada, he says, would seem to be in an ideal
position to leverage its multicultural population to
help create these linkages. Yet it isn’t happening.
“There is a lot of potential that is not being realized
in this country.”
PHOTO: JIM WEST/GETSTOCK.COM
THE MANUFACTURING ISSUE
PHOTO: IAN G. DAGNALL/GETSTOCK.COM
Apple’s head office in Silicon Valley epitomizes the
kind of value-added economic activity that leads to
economic success. While its products are physically
manufactured overseas, the activities that really add
value to them — design, engineering, and marketing,
for example — take place in California.
Renovating Canadian manufacturing
Experts from the Rotman School on the state of manufacturing in Canada As told to Jenny Hall and Paul Fraumeni
Manufacturing is about more than products and
processes. The way Canada engages with the world
and the policies it deploys contribute to its success —
or lack of success — in a world economy. We spoke to
Professors Wendy Dobson and Walid Hejazi about the
state of manufacturing in Canada. Dobson is a professor
and co-director of the Institute of International Business
at the Rotman School of Management and
Canada’s former Associate Deputy Minister
of Finance. Hejazi is an associate professor
of international business at Rotman.
Manufacturing has changed in Canada.
“Think about textiles and apparel. Montreal
used to be populated with textiles and
apparel firms. Where are those firms now? They’re in
Bangladesh. We don’t do this kind of labour-intensive
manufacturing very well anymore. There are other
countries with lower cost labour that do it more cheaply
and maybe even better. What’s going on in Montreal
now is knowledge-based, such as design, to create a
very different industry — the fashion industry. It evolved
out of textiles and apparel. That’s an interesting example
of why there is advanced manufacturing, because we’ve
gotten smarter.” – Wendy Dobson
PHOTO: JOHN HRYNIUK
There’s a global value chain for products, and where
you are in that chain matters. “When you look at an
iPhone, where’s the value? If it’s a $1,000 product and the
assembly is done in China, how much value does that
add? Very little. As Wendy said, we don’t have the comparative advantage in manufacturing anymore. But the
real value in the phone is in design, engineering, marketing, branding, procurement, finance, and distribution. That
happens at Apple in California.” – Walid Hejazi
Canada needs to position itself better in the global
value chain. “So many global value chains, like that of
Apple, originated and are developed around U.S. companies. And gradually there are Asian
value chains emerging which Canadians also need to become part of.
Because the Americans are right next
door, it is easier to be part of their
value chains. But we have to start
moving beyond that because of the
competitive challenges coming from
Asian companies.” – Dobson
Innovation is key to success — but it’s not happening in Canada. “Canada is at risk at falling out of the
world’s R&D club. When it comes to innovation, we’re
near the bottom when you look at the developed
countries. China is closing in on us in terms of R&D per
capita.” – Hejazi
We need policy to address this, but blanket policies
aimed at “protecting Canadian industry” are too
simple. “There’s a very interesting example in the
oil sands. There’s an alliance called the Canadian Oil
Sands Innovation Alliance that is responding to the
criticisms of the oil sands by creating this initiative
where they’re linking energy and the environment. You
can im­agine how interested the Chinese are because of
the Canada Research Chair in Micro and Nano Engineering Systems. “It is not only
academically successful — I say it is successful because it impacts our society.”
Now a mainstream technology at hospitals around the world, the da Vinci system
allows a surgeon to look through a three-dimensional virtual reality environment in
the robotics system to manipulate tissue and do surgical procedures more intuitively,
says Sun.
“So, high-tech surgeons, low-tech surgeons, new and old, they all achieve good results.
And it makes the process more efficient — it’s quicker, it’s less invasive to patients.”
The da Vinci system is Sun’s inspiration for his work in the micro-robotic cellular
surgery field. A multiple winner of U of T’s Connaught Innovation Award (2011-2014)
and U of T’s 2011 Inventor of the Year, he is currently developing techniques that he
hopes will have a similar transformative impact on society.
One area with potential is micro-biopsies of tumor cells.
Sun has developed small “grippers” that are mounted on a robotic surgical
system and can grab a single cell or a few cells for biopsy. Its advantages are many:
it is less invasive, less traumatic for the patient, and it doesn’t disturb the tumour as
much as current biopsy procedures.
Another application is in vitro fertilization (IVF) that was pioneered by Nobel
laureate Robert Edwards in the 1970s to create the first test-tube baby. Sun’s lab
is working to improve the sperm selection and injection process by developing
robotics technologies.
The current manual process involves a highly-skilled embryologist gathering
a single sperm in a needle and injecting it into an egg. A sperm tail is about one
micrometre wide — by comparison, a human hair is about 80 micrometres — so, this
their environmental problems. This is innovation that’s
coming out of Canada. That’s a good story.
But the other story is that in 2012, a Chinese firm
acquired Nexen, an oil company in Calgary, for $15 billion. The prime minister got involved, saying, basically,
‘We’re going to allow this acquisition to go ahead, but
it’s the end of a trend and not the beginning of one.’
The idea was to protect large Canadianowned companies as strategic assets from
foreign takeovers.
I have talked to people in the oil patch.
Smaller, innovative start-up companies said,
‘You don’t know what that’s done to us. We
always looked for big players to provide
capital, even come in and buy us out. And
venture capital funders that we could get are always
looking for the exit vehicle.’ Many of them could be large,
often foreign-owned companies. For Canadian investors,
there is a limit to the concentration of their assets they want
in Canadian assets. So bringing in foreigners provides more
diversity and more options. For innovative small companies,
preventing this has basically been a stop sign.” – Dobson
Entrepreneurship is important, but education is
critical to fostering entrepreneurship. “I think the
number one way to measure success of the educational
system is how many students go on to post-secondary —
college, university or apprenticeship. Everyone talks a lot
about entrepreneurship as an alternative, but what does
a 16- or 17-year-old know? They might have a fantastic
idea, but they’re setting set themselves up for failure. They
have to go on to post-secondary.” – Hejazi
method requires tremendous dexterity on the part of the embryologist.
Sun’s robotic injection system is far more precise and efficient. Contained in a
device about the size of an adult hand, a micro-robot is able to grab a single healthy
sperm and inject it into an egg cell — all directed by a few computer mouse clicks.
Sun’s system was first used in a small-scale human trial in 2012, and while the
eggs were successfully fertilized, the patients ended up having miscarriages.
He is now in the process of securing additional funding that he hopes to have
in place this year. This funding will allow him to make fine improvements to the
technology and conduct large-scale patient trials.
Sun says his IVF robotic system has inherent advantages like any robotic system:
it is more accurate, it reduces the human skill requirement and it increases efficiency.
“So a hospital can offer more cycles to more patients.”
Its benefit to society could be significant, he says, noting that statistics from the
World Health Organization show that one in six couples are unable to conceive.
Moreover, there is a shortage of experts to treat infertility.
“IVF labs and clinics are one of those places that need the most robotics
and automation technologies,” he says. “An overwhelming number of procedures
and routines are still handled by a very low number of very highly qualified
embryologists.”
So how long before his micro-robotics cellular surgery techniques for biopsies
and IVF become mainstream, like the da Vinci system has over the last 15 years?
“We are working hard to push some of our robotic cellular surgery technologies
to hospitals within the next few years,” says Sun. “The potential benefits to patients
will be enormous.”
EDGE / SPRING 2015
7
THE MANUFACTURING ISSUE
HEALTH INNOVATION
A plastics innovation that makes medical devices safer
What is he making?
Paul Santerre makes plastics that can be safely used in
medical devices such as catheters, implants and engin­
eered tissues without triggering the serious side effects
that can plague these devices. Santerre’s innovative
design for plastics in blood-contacting medical tubes has
been used in Canada since 2011 and in the United States
and Europe since 2013.
How is he making it?
Santerre has engineered a surface-modifying macromolecule that can be added to the plastic beads melted
down to make the tubes. These macromolecules —
known by the trade name Endexo — are part anchor and
part active ingredient.
The anchor is made of carbon-based molecules that
migrate to the outer surface of the plastic tube. Attached
Why is he making it?
to these anchor molecules are segments containing fluWhile such tubes are widely used for blood dialysis, blood
oro-carbon and alcohol chemistry. These segments are
transfusions and drug delivery, the body recognizes them
the active ingredient — they stop the chain reaction that
as foreign objects. When plastic comes in contact with
leads to blood clots.
blood, it interacts with proteins, setting off a biochemical
Perfecting Endexo has been a long road. Santerre
reaction that ends in blood clots forming on the tube’s
vividly recalls making the macromolecules in his lab
surface. If those clots break away from the surface they
in 10 gram batches in 1993. Today, they are made
can plug a blood vessel and cause a heart attack
commercially in multi-killogram batches and are
or stroke.
now scaling up to several tonnes per year.
Paul Santerre
The traditional answer to this problem has
He and the Interface Biologics Inc. team
makes plastics that
been to coat tubes with anti-coagulants such
spent
years getting the formula just right, and
can be used safely in
medical procedures
as heparin. This is an expensive step in the
making sure it could be manufactured using
without causing
manufacturing process and these drugs can
existing assembly lines to keep costs low.
blood clots.
break away from the plastic or degrade over
“As an engineer, it really blows my mind
time and lose their effectiveness.
that a technology is working at that scale, in
“The people who have these tubes are our most
the same way that it did on my small lab bench,”
vulnerable population — chronically-ill people, the elderly
says Santerre.
and severely sick premature babies,” says Santerre.
“They bruise easily and you don’t want them taking
anti-coagulants needlessly.”
Professor, Faculty of Dentistry and
the Institute of Biomaterials &
Biomedical Engineering.
Cofounder of Interface Biologics
Inc., a U of T biotech start-up that
develops catheters, next generation
dialysis filters and drug-polymer
coatings for medical devices.
Thesmaller
OF ADVANCED MANU
PHOTO: NSERC
Quantum dots vs cancer cells
Professor, Institute of Biomaterials
& Biomedical Engineering,
Donnelly Center for Cellular and
Biomolecular Research,
Department of Chemistry,
Department of Materials Science
and Engineering, Department of
Chemical Engineering and Applied
Chemistry and Canada Research
Chair in Bionanotechnology
8
EDGE / SPRING 2015
What is he making?
this environment. He is mapping the size and shape
Warren Chan is assembling cadmium, zinc, sulfur and
of structures that find their way in successfully. This
selenium nanoparticles into nanocrystals called quantum
map will guide the design of quantum dots and other
dots that diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer,
nanotechnologies for use in cancer patients.
hepatitis or malaria.
Chan is also tackling another problem: build-up
He is designing quantum dots that can be safely
in patients’ bodies of toxic metal nanoparticles. His
injected into the body, enter sick cells, emit different
solution involves “gluing” together quantum dots into
colours of light to signal the presence of specific diseases,
larger structures using DNA. Once these structures have
and release drugs.
identified and treated the disease, they migrate to the liver
His quantum dots can also be incorporated into
where the DNA glue breaks down, leaving behind
a slide attached to a mobile device, such as a
nanoparticles small enough for a patient’s body
Warren
smart phone. Once in contact with blood
to safely eliminate. Chan colouror urine, quantum dots on the slide can be
codes deadly diseases
and delivers drugs to
scanned with the phone’s camera to see
How is he making it?
affected
parts
of
the
what colour they are emitting, allowing
Chan’s quantum dots are “cooked” in a
body via “quantum
health workers in the field to scan for
synthetic oil. He makes them emit different
dots.”
hundreds of diseases at once.
colours by cooking them for different lengths
of time.
Why is he making it?
Chan then coats quantum dots that emit a specific
Currently, it is challenging to get quantum dots into
colour with small molecules designed to detect the molcancerous cells. A tumour’s environment can change
ecules our bodies produce in the presence of specific
depending on the type of cancer. Chan uses quantum
illnesses. Because quantum dots gather wherever they find
dots to create larger structures that can navigate
those molecules, he is in essence colour-coding disease.
Tracking cancer in real time for personalized treatment
What is he making?
Ulrich Krull is making the Swiss army knife of nanoparticle
biosensors. The chemist aims to create a tiny multipurpose
tool to diagnose disease, provide real-time updates on its
progress and deliver drugs to sick cells while bypassing
healthy ones. As Krull himself notes:“That’s a lot of chemistry.”
tissue. Shine an infrared light on the nanoparticles, and
their glow will guide you to diseased cells they find.
Tool two is a string of nucleic acids that bind to mutations of the cell’s proteins or nucleic acids associated with
different stages of disease.
Tool three is the drug designed to disrupt the molecular processes responsible for a patient’s disease. The
Why is he making it?
drugs detach when the nanoparticle is actiUlrich Krull
Krull wants to do something that is currently
vated by high intensity infrared pulses.
uses microfluimpossible: peer inside a cell, see how a
The tricky part of building these multiidics and glowing
nanoparticles to look
disease is progressing in real time, and affect
tool nanoparticles is placing the tools
inside cells and see
its progression.
exactly where they need to be. To do this
how a disease is
This is important because scientists susefficiently
and scale up for manufacturing,
progressing.
pect different molecular processes in different
Krull is experimenting with microfluidics.
people could result in a similar cancer. That would
Microfluidics involves putting both the
explain why some leukemia patients can be helped by a
nanoparticles and the tools you want to attach into a solutreatment that targets a specific molecular reaction, while
tion, and running them through nanoscale plumbing.
other patients see no improvement.
While a kitchen tap produces warm water when both the
Krull’s goal is to find out how the molecular
cold and hot water spigots are open, at the nanoscale you
reactions inside a patient’s cells may differ from
get a stream of hot and another of cold water that flow
another patient with the same disease in order to
together side by side. Your kitchen sink is subject to turadvance personalized treatment.
bulence, so hot and cold mix. At the nanoscale, there is no
turbulence and hence no mixing.
How is he making it?
“You can put the materials you want through this
Krull is working with a nanoparticle composed of the eleplumbing and place them exactly where you want them,”
ments sodium, yttrium, fluoride and some lanthanide ions
says Krull.
that are light sensitive. Shine an infrared light on them and
This allows him to space each tool on his
they will glow at various colours, absorbing invisible infrananoparticles far enough away from the others that
red light and changing it to visible light.
they don’t react with each other. Instead, they react
Krull adds to the surface of the nanoparticles various
with molecules inside or on target cells, providing
tools that carry out three specific tasks. Tool one consists
information about the presence of disease and its
of molecules that recognize and bind to diseased cells or
progression, and dropping off drugs.
r side
FACTURING
Professor, Department of
Chemical and Physical Sciences,
U of T Mississauga.
What does the word manufacturing mean to you? Most people think of
cars, computers or washing machines. But manufacturing is also about
making small things — sometimes very small things. That includes
molecular compounds designed to seek out and destroy disease in our
bodies or make medical implants safer.
The expertise needed to combine the right materials in the right way and
turn them into useful products makes this advanced manufacturing.
Meet four U of T researchers using advanced manufacturing techniques
that demonstrate good things really do come in small packages.
By Sharon Oosthoek
A ‘hook’ that can signal disease or dangerous goods
What is he making?
Bernie Kraatz makes nano-sized “hooks” designed to fish
out from blood, serum or urine the molecules that signal
diseases such as cancer or HIV. The hooks are made of
combinations of nanoparticles that can also lock on to
the biochemical changes that happen when drugs fight
these illnesses. They are designed to be embedded in the
microchips of hand-held biosensors, allowing them to be
used in the field and in the hospital to diagnose disease
and monitor treatment.
How is he making it?
Kraatz’s nano-sized hooks are made of tiny chemical compounds that mimic larger, disease-signalling biological
molecules. “The compounds I make are small compared
to the biomolecules we are fishing for, but they retain the
ability to bind with them,” he says.
Getting these hooks just right requires an intimate
understanding of the chemical properties of both the
compounds and the biomolecules in our bodies that he
wants to hook. Kraatz’s hooks are made of nanoparticles
of ferrocene. Ferrocene is a crystalline compound
Why is he making it?
made of iron, carbon and hydrogen. It is
Bernie
Biosensors equipped with his nanoparticle
responsible for first-level sensing and gives a
Kraatz uses tiny
“hooks” to fish for
hooks could be used to encourage more
simple read-out.
molecules
to
make
personalized medicine by offering fast,
But ferrocene needs help recognizing
on-site diagnoses
accurate diagnosis. Not only can his hooks
exactly what it has found. And so Kraatz enlists
via hand-held
quickly scan bio­logical samples for disease,
the help of other nanomaterials — fragments
biosensors.
they can also be used to make sure drugs are
of DNA and/or fragments of peptides, which
working as they should.
are short chains of amino acids. The DNA fragments
Such biosensors could also help border agents quickly
recognize and bind with larger mutant, disease-causing
detect DNA indicating the presence of endangered or
DNA. The peptides recognize and bind with larger mutant
invasive species in goods. Water treatment workers could
proteins that signal the disease’s progress.
test for pathogens such as viruses or bacteria. Current tests
These ferrocene/DNA/peptide compounds are
for pathogens involve culturing samples, which can take
attached to a silicon chip coated in a thin layer of
days to return a result. “We are offering continuous and fast
gold nanoparticles. The gold nanoparticles conduct
detection,” says Kraatz.
electricity and are connected to a digital reader that
gives a diagnosis.
Professor, Department of
Physical and Environmental
Sciences, U of T Scarborough.
EDGE / SPRING 2015
9
THE MANUFACTURING ISSUE
MANUFACTURING PROCESS
Predicting equipment failure risk
Andrew Jardine’s software innovation is a hit with manufacturers by Patchen Barss
flown with analysis of iron and chromium content in the engine’s lubricants, Jardine
found he could reliably predict risk of failure.
“We have been improving and generalizing our models ever since,” said Jardine.
“We can’t say, ‘If you keep running it, this machine will break in three days.’ We can
only speak in terms of risk and probabilities. But we can be very precise in our assessment of risk.”
Manufacturers do not require precise expiration dates to make decisions about
repairing and replacing equipment — accurate odds will suffice. Jardine’s software
platform, known as EXAKT, blends equipment failure risk with other data including the
asset’s original cost, changes to operating and maintenance expenses, and resale value.
A large marine shipping company used EXAKT to analyze wear and tear on their
vehicles. Working with Jardine, they figured out they could save $1.5 million per year
simply by replacing their trucks every 10 years, rather than every 18.
“Asset management has transformed in the 50 years I’ve been working in the
field,” Jardine says. “Nowadays many manufacturers do not just sell the item, they
also provide maintenance support. And they want to ensure that the support they
provide is optimal. For example, I’ve been collaborating with Bombardier to assist
them in providing optimal maintenance schedules for their aircraft fleets. This is a
service they can provide to their customers.”
Jardine’s models have become sophisticated enough that they are now starting
to gain traction beyond the manufacturing sector — including back in the world of
medicine. He works with a team of cancer specialists to adapt his “proportional hazards
modeling” to improve screening strategies for conditions like breast cancer.
PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER WAHL
In 1958, Andrew Jardine started working as an apprentice fitter for Michael Nairn
and Company, a linoleum manufacturer based in Kirkcaldy, Scotland.
The factory’s machinery inevitably broke down from time to time. A common
equipment failure at the facility happened in “journal bearings” — ring-shaped bearings that enclose a rotating shaft.
Jardine learned to place one end of a metal ruler on the outside of the bearing,
and the other next to his ear. He could hear and feel changes in the vibration of the
machinery that told him when it was time to replace or repair.
Today, Jardine is a professor emeritus in U of T’s Department of Industrial Engineering,
with expertise in “predictive maintenance.” His metal ruler is long gone — replaced by
accelerometers, statistical models and machine algorithms — but the goal is the same:
to predict failure risk, and replace or repair at the optimal moment.
“Manufacturers want highly reliable systems — they do not want production
disrupted due to equipment failure,” he says. “Monitoring the health of equipment
was always a key activity. It’s different now, though, because we are being
overwhelmed with data.”
Mechanical sensors create data sets so large that machines are also needed to
extract meaning from the readings.
Jardine drew on insights from the field of medicine for his analysis software programs. Doctors and medical researchers were learning how to wade through masses
of data to pinpoint the risk of something going terribly wrong. Jardine migrated such
research from bodies to machines.
He tested his first software models on jet engines. Combining data on hours
10
EDGE / SPRING 2015
Reducing distracted driving
PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER WAHL
Birsen Donmez is helping drivers keep their eyes on the road by Patchen Barss
Studies have shown that texting while driving has surpassed drunkenness as the
leading cause of death for teen drivers. But even as public service campaigns plead
with drivers to relinquish their devices, cars are increasingly loaded up with GPSs,
infotainment systems, dash cams and other on-board tech.
Cars themselves are becoming devices of distraction.
As vehicles get brainier, auto manufacturers have turned to university researchers
to find ways to reduce, rather than exacerbate, distracted driving. Counterintuitively,
that can mean turning driving into a kind of game.
“If your eyes have been off the road for a certain number of seconds, we’re going
to provide you with real-time warnings. We know that helps,” says Birsen Donmez,
an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering who researches
human-car interactions. “But we’re also experimenting with a gamification interface
to motivate drivers to decrease their distraction.”
Using eye tracking, proximity sensors and other measurements, her lab generates
post-trip reports on a driver’s performance. Drivers can compare their records against
those of their peers or general society to see how they stack up — turning safe driving
into a competitive sport.
“We also try to give people badges like in a game,” Donmez says. “‘In this portion of the drive, you were safe, your driving performance was good.’ This may help
change the intrinsic motivation of the driver.”
She has been running tests both in simulators and on the road. Toyota Canada donated
a Rav 4 to the project, which Birsen’s lab is tricking out with sensors and data recorders.
The car manufacturer also supports her research financially through the Toyota
Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC). Reflecting the complexity of modern
car-making, the CSRC supports research that explores major issues like safety, rather
than focusing on developing a specific new widget. Manufacturers like Toyota have
begun to recognize the value in supporting research whose outcome is not known.
“Dr. Donmez’s research could eventually find its way into production,” says James
Foley, the Senior Principal Engineer at CSRC. “Once the project is completed and we
know the benefits it can offer to encourage safe driving and minimize driver distraction, Toyota can consider how to best incorporate them into a car.”
Donmez says the game elements of her research will likely be most effective with
risk-unaware or non-risk-averse drivers. (That’s code for teenagers.) Real-time warnings may matter more to older drivers who have declines in their attentional abilities.
Of course, she is wary of designing a feedback system that becomes a distraction
unto itself.
“With something like a single alert that comes up if your eyes are off the road, the
meaning is clear,” she says. “But with more complex displays we want to ensure that
people’s eyes aren’t off the road for more than two seconds.”
Donmez’s partnership with Toyota concludes later this year, but the CSRC has
announced a new round of funding. Her lab is in contention for follow-up projects,
also aimed at ensuring that cars’ brains don’t mess up the brains of their drivers.
EDGE / SPRING 2015
11
THE MANUFACTURING ISSUE
ENVIRONMENT
The benefit of bark
PHOTO: JOHN HRYNIUK
How a natural resource can be good for manufacturing — and the environment by Jenny Hall
Nobody wants bark. Even in the context of healthy
trees harvested by the forestry industry, bark is considered waste. In sawmills it’s either burned — inefficiently
— for heat after the rest of the tree has been processed
or simply thrown away.
Where everyone else sees waste, Ning Yan of the
Faculty of Forestry sees opportunity.
“If you look at bark from a chemical composition point
of view, it’s very good,” she says. “Bark offers protection to
the tree. It has unique antifungal and antioxidant properties. It contains components and chemicals we can use.”
Her research group is leading the Bark Biorefinery Project, which includes partners at Lakehead University, public
sector organizations and private sector companies. They
are experimenting with bark to make green adhesives that
could replace synthetic petroleum-based glues for all kinds
of applications. Her group also makes bio-based foams using
bark that can have applications ranging from construction
to automotive. And the researchers have found a way to
use bark to replace bisphenol A (BPA) as the raw material to
make epoxy resins.“The idea here is that we are using waste
biomass to make a renewable chemical that can replace a
chemical that comes from petroleum resources.”
She is also using bark to create a product that could
replace particle board. Because the chemicals in bark have
natural adhesive properties, she is able to make “bark
board” in the lab without any glue at all. “With traditional
particle board you need to use glues. You need to add
chemicals. We are thinking that the bark will stick to itself.”
Yan’s work with bark is one of many projects she has
on the go. She is breaking down wood fibre and making
nanocrystals that are also electrically conductive. These
could be used to make new materials that can substitute
for similar nanomaterials made from petroleum-based
sources. She is depositing bioactive agents on paper to
make inexpensive diagnostic sensors to detect disease
outbreaks or waterborne contaminants. She is making
lighter wood panels for use in furniture and construction by replacing either solid wood or particle board
with paper honeycombs that provide all the strength at
a much lower weight and cost. She has also developed
lightweight wood fiber composite panels suitable for cars.
Underlying all her projects are two intertwined
philosophies. The first is a belief that forest-based
products can be used to replace non-renewable petroleum-based products in a variety of applications.
“We have this tree, which is very good material,”
she says. “The convention is to make furniture or
lumber out of it, and that’s fine. But maybe we can
make something even more valuable.”
She also believes that traditional forest products
can be made more sensibly and sustainably.
“Nature has engineered wood to be the perfect
material. We can try to imitate it but we cannot do
better. It’s lightweight, strong, insulating, biodegradable,
and renewable if managed properly. We are going to
keep using wood in our daily lives. But how we can use
it more responsibly and sustainably?”
The forest industry is a major economic engine for
Canada. But it’s not doing well, she says. “It has been
focused on taking trees and making them into simple
products. These are products that everyone can make
— now we have competitive pressure from China,
Brazil and other places. Manufacturing costs are high
here and we use very outdated machinery.
“As researchers we try to find new, innovative
ways to use these raw materials that are not only
more environmentally friendly but also can generate
more value.”